Norristown finishes ninth in Escape the Rock

Norristown's Shaheed Hill puts Kostya Golobokov from the Hill School in an armbar during a preliminary round at the Escape the Rock tournament. Shaheed Hill finished fourth place in the 285 lb weight division.

HOLLAND — It was a disappointing 0-for-3 Sunday night at Council Rock South High School at the Escape the Rock Tournament as three local matmen came up empty in the championship finals.

Norristown’s Brett Harner was beaten in the 182-pound finals when he was ridden out in ultimate rideout by Bald Eagle Area’s Jake Taylor and dropped a 3-2 decision.

Plymouth Whitemarsh’s Justin Staudenmayer also came up short in the 160-pound finals, losing to Malvern Prep’s Greg Bacci, and Norristown junior Mike Springer was beaten in the 145-pound championship bout by Father Judge’s Joe Galasso.

Harner, whose three losses this year have all come in overtime, exchanged escapes with Taylor through three periods and two overtimes before he just failed to get out from bottom in the third and final overtime period.

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“He was able to hold on longer,” Harner said. “He was in better shape and, apparently, he wanted it more than I did.

“Now I have a little less than two months to fix it.”

Harner said Taylor’s defense was nearly impenetrable.

“He’s almost impossible to score on,” the Norristown senior said. “He’s real strong, and that made it tough to work my stuff.

“He’s tough kid, so now I have to put it together in March (at the state tournament). It would have been nice to win here, but if I can get a gold medal around my neck (in Hershey), that’ll feel a whole lot better.”

Staudenmayer wrestled tough in getting to the 160-pound finals and was scoreless with Bacci deep into the third period.

But Staudenmayer got caught riding high and Bacci turned it into a reversal and three near-fall points in the final 20 seconds to emerge with a 5-0 win.

“I definitely need to work on my conditioning and my offense,” Staudenmayer said after the setback, “This was my first real test (coming back from a lis-franc ligament injury) and now I know where I stand.

“He rode me out in the second period and all he needed was an escape in the third period, so he was going wild down there (in the down position). There was nothing I could do.”

Things also didn’t go well for Norristown’s other finalist, Mike Springer, who dropped a 7-4 decision to Galasso.

Galasso took the initiative in the bout and scored three takedowns in the first two periods en route to the win.

In all, six members of the local contingent combined to finish sixth or better, with Norristown’s Zach Fuentes placing third at 113 pounds.

Fuentes dropped a heartbreaking, 2-1, double-overtime decision to two-time Delaware state champ Brent Fleetwood of Smyrna High in the semifinals, but came back to top Danny Martoccio of Council Rock South, 4-3, to place third.

The biggest surprise of the day among area wrestlers was the fourth-place finish of Norristown heavyweight Shaheed Hill, who wound up losing just twice over the two-day tournament, both times to Owen J. Roberts’ Brad Trego.

La Salle 132-pounder Greg Konieczny wrestled back to finish sixth.

Norristown finished ninth as a team, accumulating 116.5 team points.

“I’m real happy with Shaheed,” said Eagles head coach Mark Harner. “For a sophomore, taking fourth, I’m real happy with that. And Rashon (Lusane), a freshman. getting to the podium (after an eighth-place finish at 152), is a positive.